“Mariana”

Complete Text

‘Mariana
in the moated grange.’ —Measure
for Measure.

With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look’d sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, ‘My
life is dreary, He
cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, I
would that I were dead!’ Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were
dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the
sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, ‘The
night is dreary, He
cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, I
would that I were dead!’ Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl
crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen’s low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed
morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, ‘The
day is dreary, He
cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, I
would that I were dead!’ About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken’d waters
slept, And o’er it many, round and small, The cluster’d marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, ‘My
life is dreary, He
cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, I
would that I were dead!’ And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and
away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their
cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, ‘The
night is dreary, He
cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, I
would that I were dead!’ All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak’d; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot
shriek’d, Or from the crevice peer’d about. Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, ‘My
life is dreary, He
cometh not,’ she said; She said, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, I
would that I were dead!’ The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the
sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she,
‘I am very dreary, He
will not come,’ she said; She wept, ‘I am
aweary, aweary, Oh
God, that I were dead!’

Summary

This poem begins with the description of an abandoned
farmhouse, or grange, in which the flower-pots are covered in overgrown
moss and an ornamental pear tree hangs from rusty nails on the wall.
The sheds stand abandoned and broken, and the straw (“thatch”) covering
the roof of the farmhouse is worn and full of weeds. A woman, presumably
standing in the vicinity of the farmhouse, is described in a four-line
refrain that recurs—with slight modifications—as the last lines
of each of the poem’s stanzas: “She only said, ‘My life is dreary
/ He cometh not,’ she said; / She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary, /
I would that I were dead!’”

The woman’s tears fall with the dew in the evening and
then fall again in the morning, before the dew has dispersed. In
both the morning and the evening, she is unable to look to the “sweet
heaven.” At night, when the bats have come and gone, and the sky
is dark, she opens her window curtain and looks out at the expanse of
land. She comments that “The night is dreary” and repeats her death-wish
refrain.

In the middle of the night, the woman wakes up to the
sound of the crow, and stays up until the cock calls out an hour
before dawn. She hears the lowing of the oxen and seemingly walks
in her sleep until the cold winds of the morning come. She repeats
the death-wish refrain exactly as in the first stanza, except that
this time it is “the day” and not “my life” that is dreary.

Within a stone’s throw from the wall lies an artificial
passage for water filled with black waters and lumps of moss. A
silver-green poplar tree shakes back and forth and serves as the
only break in an otherwise flat, level, gray landscape. The woman
repeats the refrain of the first stanza.

When the moon lies low at night, the woman looks to her
white window curtain, where she sees the shadow of the poplar swaying
in the wind. But when the moon is very low and the winds exceptionally strong,
the shadow of the poplar falls not on the curtain but on her bed
and across her forehead. The woman says that “the night is dreary”
and wishes once again that she were dead.

During the day, the doors creak on their hinges, the fly
sings in the window pane, and the mouse cries out or peers from
behind the lining of the wall. The farmhouse is haunted by old faces,
old footsteps, and old voices, and the woman repeats the refrain
exactly as it appears in the first and fourth stanzas.